Revisiting a rite of passage

January 24 2003By Robin Usher

The fence posts, railings and corrugated iron that make up the set of Operalive's latest production are from a farm outside Canberra. After bushfire destroyed the rest of the property's buildings, the material was gathered by Canberra designer Kaoru Alfonso, who joined in the national capital's fire fight last weekend.

Luckily, his house is safe and the first Australian production of the American composer Aaron Copland's The Tender Land will open tomorrow night in Melbourne.

Director Caroline Stacey says the work is appropriate for the present climate of distrust between metropolitan and regional Australia and the divisions caused over the refugee debate.

She says the fences remind people of the Australian landscape, and allow the use of the Ned Kelly motif from Sidney Nolan's famous paintings.

Copland, who died in 1990, wrote the work about 50 years ago. It explores the rite of passage of an adolescent girl in a rural community, as well as the alienation experienced by an outsider. ");document.write("

advertisement

");
}
}
// -->

It is his only full-scale opera and was commissioned by Rodgers and Hammerstein for a television performance, but its composition was interrupted by politics.

Copland had attended a World Peace Conference in 1949, where he met Dimitri Shostakovich and other Soviet musicians.

In the atmosphere of early-1950s America, that was enough to attract the suspicion of anti-communist activists, even though Shostakovich was constantly persecuted by Stalin.

Another of his musical compositions, A Lincoln Portrait, was withdrawn from President Eisenhower's 1953 inauguration ceremony and the composer received a subpoena from Senator Joseph McCarthy's subcommittee on un-American affairs. This caused nervous television executives to cancel the broadcast of The Tender Land.

But Copland was relieved that this was the worst he had to suffer.

The conductor of the Melbourne production, John Dingle, said that Copland told a friend that he had also been concerned about being considered a sexual and political deviant. The opera's libretto was written by his lover, Erik Johns, under a pseudonym, and was inspired by James Agee's novel about the Depression, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

"He was the only composer called by McCarthy and, although his work suffered to some extent, he was clever enough not to incriminate any friend or colleague," Dingle says.

The setting and the musical style are reminiscent of Copland's great "American" ballets of the previous two decades - Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring.

But Dingle says the production has gone to great pains to remove any trace of the Broadway musical Oklahoma! from the performance and to stress its relevance to Australia.

Dingle, who is chorus master at Opera Queensland, moved north after the demise of the Victoria State Opera, but remains active in Melbourne.

He says fully staged and orchestrated opera productions are necessary here to ensure that singers, musicians and technicians continue to develop.

"The development of a state opera company is important in the medium term so that people have an option to remain in the state," he says, although stressing that he is not calling for the return of the VSO.

"All the singers and musicians are resident in Melbourne and should have a bright future," Dingle says.

The Tender Land is at Horti Hall, 31 Victoria Parade, Carlton (opposite Trades Hall) from tomorrow until February 1, at 8pm, and on Sunday, at 5pm.